The novel opens with Sadie Woodbury, elementary school student, finding herself face-to-face with a would-be school shooter. Sadie (and, presumably, the entire school or at least the secretary the shooter came to kill) is saved by teacher George Woodbury, also her own father. This is a rather heavy-handed way of letting the reader know how… Continue reading Book Review: The Best Kind of People by Zoe Whittall
One of my 2017 reading goals is to read more short stories. Readers seem to have a love 'em or hate 'em relationship with short stories (especially short story collections) but I fall firmly into the love 'em category. Particularly in my life right now, I enjoy being able to finish a whole story in… Continue reading Book Review: Barrelling Forward by Eva Crocker
Here I Am is 500+ pages and it took me about half of that to begin enjoying the novel. Having read Foer's work before, I was sure my commitment would pay off. At the same time, my expectations of Foer's work led to some initial disappointment with Here I Am. Foer's two previous novels, Extremely… Continue reading Book Review: Here I Am by Jonathan Safran Foer
The Conjoined is filled with everything you hope will never happen to your daughter. Although set in the city of Vancouver whose streets and neighbourhoods I recognize, the story seems to exist in some alternate universe where Vancouver is terrible, always dangerous, where nothing good exists, everyone is evil, and you might as well not… Continue reading Book Review: The Conjoined by Jen Sookfong Lee
Lotto and Mathilde meet at the very end of their final year of university and marry two weeks later. They're young, broke, and both shocked by the fact of falling in love. Fates and Furies follows them through the next twenty or so years of their marriage, detailing the ups and downs, the secrets that… Continue reading Book Review: Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff
Father Dowling is a young Catholic priest in a city parish. One day he happens to meet two young women, prostitutes, and begins a sort of friendship with them. His love for them is strong - perhaps even Christ-like - but shockingly naive and his increasing single-mindedness and involvement in their lives becomes distorting and… Continue reading Book Review: Such is My Beloved by Morley Callaghan
Izzy has just graduated from high school when she finds herself pregnant, the result of an ongoing affair with her art teacher. Without support or finances to raise her child, she opts to join an experimental unit run by the young genius Dr. Grind. For ten years, ten families will live together as one family,… Continue reading Book Review: Perfect Little World by Kevin Wilson
This is a story strong on description, full of characters with hidden depths and normal secrets. It is a story about a mother-daughter relationship (and not one to aspire to). The story is primarily told from Ana's point of view, though we also get glimpses into her mother, Min. We are introduced to Ana as… Continue reading Book Review: When She Was Electric by Andrea MacPherson
She had watched other women with infants and eventually understood what she craved: boundless permission - no, the absolute necessity to hold and kiss and stroke this tiny person...Where else in life, Mabel wondered, could a woman love so openly and with such abandon? Eowyn Ivey brings a powerful edge to this re-telling of a… Continue reading Book Review: The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey
Kevin Chong writes about a Vancouver I recognize. While the city isn't necessarily a major player in the novel, it's an important background and well-evoked with a few simple settings and descriptions. And though this is what drew me to read Beauty Plus Pity I enjoyed the novel greatly for its characters and plotting. Malcolm… Continue reading Book Review: Beauty Plus Pity by Kevin Chong
